NEW YORK, Jun 27 (IPS) – I’ve spent much of my life in the machinery of international development, navigating acronyms, crises, and committee rooms with stale coffee. Through it all—amid war zones, climate summits, and remote island consultations—one institution has remained constant: the United Nations.
Revered, ridiculed, relied upon.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the UN, in its current form, is not fit for purpose.
That’s not a call to abandon it. It’s a call to fix the house the world built before the roof collapses entirely. Because while the UN remains the only institution with near-universal legitimacy, its structures are badly outdated.
The world it was built for in 1945 no longer exists. Today’s threats—climate collapse, mass displacement, AI-driven inequality—demand a smarter, leaner, more inclusive United Nations. Reform is no longer a luxury. It’s an obligation.
So, how do we get there?
Start with Governance.
The Security Council is the UN’s most glaring anachronism. It reflects post-WWII power, not today’s multipolar reality. But full-scale reform has failed for decades. So let’s be pragmatic. Expand the Council to include regional permanent seats without veto, allowing Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and SIDS a permanent voice.
Introduce term-based rotation for new seats, and bind permanent members to veto restraint in the face of mass atrocities. These reforms won’t fix everything, but they’ll chip away at the legitimacy deficit.
Follow the Money.
One of the UN’s biggest problems isn’t policy—it’s how it’s funded. Over 70% of UN development work is paid for by earmarked, donor-driven funds, creating a patchwork of pet projects and weakened country ownership. The solution? Cap earmarked funding. Reinvest in core funding mechanisms.
Introduce a Global Solidarity Contribution—a small levy on air travel or financial transactions—to create independent funding for global public goods. Because right now, the people who suffer most from climate collapse or pandemics have the least say in how UN funds are spent.
Empower the Country Level.
Ask any government where the UN matters most, and the answer is the country office—not New York. Yet the UN Development System remains fragmented and turf-driven.
It’s time to give Resident Coordinators real authority across agencies, consolidate back-office functions, and scrap duplicative structures. One-UN should mean one plan, one budget, one voice. Let’s stop pretending otherwise.
Reclaim Technical Integrity.
The UN’s comparative advantage was never its bureaucracy. It was its expertise. But too often, technical roles are politicized or handed to parachuted consultants with little country context. We need a Global Technical Corps—a pool of deployable UN experts drawn from all regions, especially the Global South.
We need to enforce merit-based hiring and ensure at least 30% of senior posts go to nationals from least developed countries. Diversity shouldn’t be window dressing—it should drive decisions.
Make It Democratic.
The UN Charter begins with “We the peoples”—not “We the diplomats.” Yet citizens have little say in the institution that governs global rules. We need a UN Parliamentary Assembly—an advisory body elected or nominated by regional blocs.
We need to formally include civil society in decision-making and ensure transparency in how leaders are chosen and money is spent. If the UN doesn’t reflect people’s voices, it risks irrelevance.
These aren’t utopian dreams. They are strategic, staged, and long overdue reforms. Start small. Pilot in willing countries. Build coalitions across the Global South and reform-minded donors. Anchor reform in crisis moments, when political will opens a window for change.
Because the next time there’s a war the UN can’t stop, a climate emergency it’s too slow to respond to, or a famine it’s too bureaucratic to prevent—people won’t ask why the system failed. They’ll ask why we didn’t fix it when we had the chance.
The UN doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to work. For everyone.
Let’s get to work.
Stephanie Hodge is an international evaluator and former UN advisor who has worked across 140 countries. She writes on governance, multilateral reform, and climate equity.
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